I really wanted to like this film. Having avidly consumed all three volumes of the series on my Kindle back in 2011 I went in with a reasonably detailed (and x-rated) idea of what to expect. Over the last few days, the campaign to boycott the film has gained a great deal of momentum and having read several articles that condemn Fifty Shades of Grey┬áfor its glorification of domestic abuse, both emotional and physical, I was interested to see for myself how soft-porn Twighlight fan-fic translates for the big screen. Jamie Dornan plays the brooding and intense Christian Grey, and though frequent shots of his admittedly perfectly sculpted body are thrown in for the horny housewives in the audience, his stifling arrogance is inescapable. Dakota JohnsonÔÇÖs Anastasia Steele is a naive and sexually inexperienced college graduate who seems to be either biting her lip or sucking a pencil suggestively in every other shot. Though she does have her brief moments of hutzpah (yes, IÔÇÖm bringing hutzpah back), it feels like these moments of brief clarity when she actually speaks up for herself are thrown in either for comedic effect or to add to the sexual tension – as if it needs more..

Having said this, director Sam Taylor-Johnson has done an accurate job of bringing E.L. JamesÔÇÖ less than private fantasy to the screen as the film sticks pretty solidly to the narrative of the first book. But the main reason that this film left me with cold feet was that reading the books made it easy to overlook the emotional torment of a woman so obviously controlled by her lover both emotionally and physically. The film makes no effort (and nor should it) to hide this. I wonÔÇÖt deny that there are romantic moments and even a brief Jamie-Dornan-almost-naked-crotch-shot, doubtless thrown in as a sweetener, but if seeing a clearly scared woman cry whilst being beaten with a leather belt is your idea of erotica then you have a serious problem. Never before have I witnessed an audience take such a collective baffled gasp as they did when the credits rolled. Its fair to say it was not at all what most of us were expecting. I am not going to tell you not to watch this film. But I will warn you that if its a chirpy bondage romp you’re after youÔÇÖll probably have more luck on PornHub. Oh and Rita OraÔÇÖs wig is shit.